Distance learning Satellite Project wins quality award
Thursday 8th December
During the past two years over 500 of the most isolated people in NSW have become TAFE students via satellite, many accessing TAFE for the first time. This is all due to an innovative technology partnership between TAFE NSW-North Coast Institute’s Port Macquarie and Wauchope Campuses and TAFE NSW-Western Institute.
The project – the Interactive Distance Learning Satellite Project (IDL) has been so successful that the IDL team has recently won a 2005 NSW Premier’s Public Sector Commended Award which is in addition to the TAFE NSW Quality Award received in 2004 for this project. The team consisted of teachers Leone Hill and Dianne Hardaker (all from Wauchope Campus), Virginia Waite (from Kempsey Campus) and Julie Johnson.
Julie Johnson, teacher of Information Technology at Wauchope and Port Macquarie Campus, says that it is an exciting project for both students and teachers. “So far it’s been a magical experience. The students are so keen, so positive and so grateful – it’s a joy to teach them. It makes you feel that you are making a difference to people’s lives,”says Ms Johnson.
The IDL project involves partnerships between Optus, NSW Department of Education and Training, Northern Territory Department of Education, local communities and schools. and enables flexibly delivery programs to be supported by satellite technology. Interactive lessons and learning are provided to students in remote NSW homesteads and vocational education courses are provided to rural and remote Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities.
Studios are located in Dubbo, Port Macquarie and Broken Hill. Rural and remote homesteads on School-of-the-Air programs from Broken Hill and Distance Education programs from Dubbo, as well as other school sites are linked to the network, and can receive training from these studios. The Institutes also have a mobile satellite trailer and laptops, which can log into the studio lessons.
